This still doesn't give a definite answer to the question of how the whispering ".profile" file got there in the first place. Unfortunately, that's nearly impossible to figure out without a detailed examination of the entire disk, along with a bunch of answers to questions like what websites are visited, what web services are used (e.g. Dropbox), what matlab modules are used, and so on. That's a time-consuming and expensive process, at best. And it may not even come up with an answer.

The very likely answer is that someone in close proximity added the speech command to the profile, as a joke.

But while you're at it, why not check the fsl.sh file as well then? It was modified one day after the rest of the files in the bin folder.

The very likely answer is that someone in close proximity added the speech command to the profile, as a joke.

I agree, but it's still unclear what entry path might have been taken. Ownership of the FSL directories and files is root:wheel, and owner+group read/write. So if that's the entry path, it arrived around 9 May. Which may have been about the time of this from the OP:

So, this computer has been mine for about 5 years and has never done this before. It only did this after the applications sync with the brand new mac. The new mac does not do this.

Mtn Lion (on the new mac) has the 'say' command, so why wouldn't it show the same symptom?

Quote:

But while you're at it, why not check the fsl.sh file as well then? It was modified one day after the rest of the files in the bin folder.

Good point. I didn't notice that, only the root:wheel ownership.

To DeepThought42.0, please copy/paste this command and post the output: